Stardom to Fifadom: FIFA World Cup fever grips everyone

Mumbai: As the Fifa mania gets set to roll on June 13, the sport is already garnering a lot of attention from football lovers across the globe. Bollywood actor-producer and sports enthusiast John Abraham has his bags packed to head to Brazil. John isn’t the only one.

Director of Madras Café and Vicky Donor, Shoojit Sircar, is also headed to Brazil to watch Fifa live with friends from the industry including Shantanu Moitra and Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury. The other Bollywood director who will be cheering for his favourite team is Soumik Sen of the Gulaab Gang movie fame.

Football fever has gripped even the cricket players. India’s vice-captain Virat Kohli who’s favourite team is Germany is also planning to take off. After a busy IPL season, he might be now seen rooting for Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, his two favourite international football players.

Aparna Ravichandran, sports manager, SPT Sports, feels that the Fifa World Cup is a tournament that attracts massive interest all over the world every four years. “Football being the most popular sport worldwide, it is widely televised and thus, has a huge number of fans in most countries. A live football match is an experience of a lifetime, and given that the World Cup is happening in football-crazy Brazil this year, a carnival atmosphere is expected to reign over the entire country for the next 45 days or so, in the stadium as well as on the streets. Small wonder then that a lot of people including our Bollywood celebrities are grabbing this chance and jetting off to Brazil this June.”

Adds Nandan Kamath of GoSports Foundation, “Fifa World Cup is one of the few truly global platforms. It captures worldwide attention that no other organised event is capable of. In part, the fascination is with being at the centre of global attention and it is an opportunity to experience those special moments that sport is capable of delivering.”